Letters: Joyce Robertson's films had a huge impact on trainee social workers

Joyce Robertson studied the separation of young children from their parents

Barbara Richardson writes: The films made by Joyce Robertson and her husband James had a huge impact on me as a trainee social worker in 1969 and still inform my views on childcare and parenting. They deserved a much wider audience: the messages in them are still relevant for every carer who looks after very young children.

I was once told that the film about "John", a powerful study of the breakdown, in a very short time, of a small boy in residential care, could not be shown on TV because "it is too harrowing". It would be a timely reminder to policymakers seeking to increase the number of children looked after by one carer if the Robertsons' work could be the subject of a television documentary.

Malcolm Pim writes: While training as a social worker, I absorbed much from the Robertsons' Young Children in Brief Separation films. Together with the then relatively recent work of John Bowlby on maternal deprivation, their work is still an influence, if not often acknowledged. The current theories around attachment, of course, stem directly from their work.